This isn't a souls-like game at all.

Compared with the meat Cordyceps, the Kunqing Cordyceps collected by Puppet Hand is far less, only 28 in number.

"Damn, I harvested it too early, this batch of Cordyceps sinensis isn't ripe yet!!"

He sighed deeply, feeling regretful.

It's like planting wheat seeds and waiting for them to grow into barley.

Kunming Cordyceps also needs time to grow. If it is harvested before it matures, only immature and inferior products will be obtained.

"Fortunately, Cordyceps sinensis can be used to make props, so it's not completely trash. As long as I find a way to make it, I can turn it into something useful!"

He comforted himself, walked out of the room surrounded by hundreds of puppeteers, returned to the central corridor, and continued forward.

On the way, he passed by other Cordyceps cocoon rooms several times. Looking at the plump and round cocoons, his depressed mood was swept away and he became excited. Even the poisonous insects on the ground looked much more friendly.

“This place is truly a treasure!”

By waiting for this batch of cocoons to mature, he will be able to obtain a large amount of Kunqing Cordyceps at once, and then feed it all to the dung beetles. I believe that they will be able to hatch for the first time soon.

"I don't know what the dung beetle will look like after it emerges..."

The image of Kabuto appeared in his mind, and before he knew it, he walked out of the cocoon area and came to a hall with entwined roots.

He glanced around and found that the hall was divided into several areas by the rampant roots. Through the gaps in the roots, he saw several giant white worms like silkworms, flying hunting insects with two pairs of membranous wings that seemed to be patrolling, and a large number of mammalian insects that looked like Porsche sperm.

At first glance, this place is extremely similar to the insect camp seen in the Twin Magician Towers before, except that there is no sign of insects for the time being.

In addition, there were many skilled slaves in the hall who were carrying miscellaneous items, but they were very different from the "zombie guards" who were killed by a lightning bolt and parasitized by roots.

These skilled slaves are tall, about three or four meters tall, and resemble four-legged spiders.

Several human-shaped cocoons were hanging from its black and blue roots. Its steps were slow and steady as it was transporting the cocoons from the giant white worm to deeper parts of the hall.

"Are there any giant worms like that here? The last one I saw seemed to be blue."

"But why is that cocoon so big? Is there also Cordyceps inside?"

Ye Yiyi frowned slightly, feeling confused.

"Why do I feel like there's a person in that cocoon bag?"

He was unable to continue observing as his arrival attracted the attention of patrolling hunting insects.

After a buzzing sound, a group of eight hunting insects that looked very much like "bumblebees" flew over.

Those hunting insects are not big, about the size of a Chihuahua, but they have a ferocious appearance, with thin horns on their heads, black and yellow stripes on their bodies, and a plump tail with a long and thin red needle.

The membranous wings behind them are long and thin, which not only allow them to hover like dragonflies, but also move at high speeds without even leaving any afterimages.

Faced with Ye Yiyi, an invader that did not resemble an insect, they responded quickly and demonstrated a high level of team awareness.

There were six hunting insects, two of them were vanguards, and two of them were guarding the left and right flanks respectively, approaching from the front.

The remaining two were suspended high in the air. Suddenly, a deep yellow light flashed from the top of the thick and thin horns on their heads, followed by two dim yellow lights of varying brightness.

"interesting."

Ye Yiyi became interested, but did not dodge or avoid the flying light, allowing it to fall on her smooth and clear crystalline body.

When a dim light appeared around the body, two vanguard hunting insects flapped their wings and attacked at high speed, but were caught by the puppet hand that was well prepared.

Seven or eight puppet hands grabbed a hunting insect and used their own strength to tear the insect's body apart in mid-air, with pus-filled remains immediately scattered all over the ground.

Soul Echo +490.

Soul Echo +490.

Without Ye's orders, the remaining puppet hands rushed out. No matter how fast the hunting insect flew, it could not escape the net formed by nearly a hundred puppet hands.

In just a moment, the remaining six hunting insects were torn into pieces by the puppet hand and turned into 4140 soul echoes that were absorbed by Ye Yiyi.

Current soul echoes: 649587.

Ye Yiyi glanced at the light curtain, then looked at the dim yellow light surrounding her body, her expression slightly confused.

"This light doesn't feel like magic, nor like a hymn, nor even like a spell... So what exactly is this?"

"As for the effect, it seems to be some kind of debuff that forcibly reduced my defense and resistance to poison."

He pinched his chin and looked at the debuff icon below the health bar, allowing the puppet hand to continue hunting the other hunting insects in the hall, while he himself changed his magic power and crystal form.

Three minutes later, the dim light disappeared, and the debuff icon that appeared below the health bar also disappeared.

"Only three minutes? That's a long time in combat."

"Unfortunately, I can't deconstruct it, whether it's crystallized or magicalized, and I don't know what this power is."

He collected his thoughts and looked up at the light curtain.

In three minutes, the puppet hand slaughtered all the remaining 24 hunting insects.

Amidst the fishy yellow pus and scattered insect limbs on the ground, another 22080 soul echoes were recorded.

"67."

Muttering to himself, he glanced at the insects that were still working diligently and had not shown any reaction to the death of the hunting insects, with a slightly strange expression on his face.

"Why don't these bugs react at all?"

The skilled slaves who were parasitized by the Cordyceps fungus did not react, and continued to move steadily, carrying the giant cocoon bag to the depths of the hall.

"It's a bit strange..."

He couldn't help but think.

Compared to those intelligent hunting insects, the other insects here, including those skilled slaves, seem to be combined together to form some kind of machine.

No matter what happens in the outside world, even if all the "security guards" responsible for patrolling are killed, these mechanical parts will not react and will still operate according to the established procedures.

These "machines" combined together become a factory that continuously produces cocoon bags.

"Are these insects just tool bugs without intelligence?"

He pondered and came to a white and fat giant worm that was seven or eight meters long. He watched the mammal that looked like a Porsche sperm open the hole on its back shell and let the giant worm insert its needle-like mouthparts to absorb the substance.

Soon, large cocoons were discharged from the holes on both sides of the giant worm's body, and were then lifted up by the roots of the skillful slaves that had transformed into roots.

The entire process has a clear division of labor and is extremely efficient, just like an assembly line in a factory.

Ye Yiyi took advantage of the fact that the previous skilled slave had just left and the next skilled slave had not yet arrived, and asked the puppeteer to carry away a cocoon bag and move it aside for inspection.

"I want to see what's in here."

He stood in front of the cocoon, and one of the tentacles behind him stretched out in front of him and quietly cut the cocoon open.

Then he looked down, his expression confused and strange.

"What the hell is this?"

Chapter 573: The ruins of Youjie Town.

To Ye Yiyi's surprise, after cutting open the cocoon, there was no Cordyceps inside, nor was there the human corpse he had suspected.

There was nothing inside the cocoon except a pool of colorless, thick mucus mixed with a lot of white silk fibers.

"What the hell is this?"

Ye Yiyi had a strange expression on her face.

The cocoon burst, the bulging cocoon bag collapsed, and mucus flowed all over the ground.

He leaned over and dipped his finger in the slime, but didn't see the light curtain pop up.

Without the light curtain, it meant that this thing was not an item or prop that he could use, and was worthless in itself.

Or maybe it just hasn't become an object that can jump out of the light curtain yet.

He thought of the immature Cordyceps from before and had a guess in his mind:

This cocoon was just produced by the giant worm, and the contents are not yet mature.

"Since there are special cocoon rooms for cultivating Cordyceps, this large cocoon should also have one."

He stood up, looked at one of the four-legged servants, transformed into a ball of colorless mist and flew out, silently attaching himself to the back of one of them.

The skilled servant was completely unaware of this and left the hall with steady steps, entering the only intact door in the hall.

Walking along the dark and deep corridor, after a while, the view suddenly opened up.

The skillful slave walked out of the deep corridor and came to the edge of an extremely vast pit.

"Wait a minute, this giant tree is hollow inside?"

Slightly startled, he lowered his head to glance at the wreckage of buildings on the roadside, then looked up and saw in the dim light a huge blue-black circular wall standing there like a mountain.

This huge circular wall, so high that the top cannot be seen, separates the inside and the outside. It is buried thousands of meters underground and has existed for who knows how many years.

Ye Yiyi frowned and looked into the distance along the road beside the pit. He saw a brightly lit town at the bottom of a giant wall not far away.

"town?"

He became more and more confused, thinking, could it be that the insect people have another gathering place here?

The silhouette of the previously escaping hunting insect is now in the town.

"No wonder there are still bug people here. This makes sense."

But the skillful slave did not go to the town. On the way, it turned around, attached its limbs to the steep vertical rock wall, and walked towards the pit.

Ye Yiyi painted one of the giant cocoons, leaving a mark, and then flew out lightly, avoiding the sight of patrolling hunting insects, and headed towards the town.

On the way, he found several blue-black rubber pipes tied together and fixed to a huge wall.

"The energy source for the vehicles outside the wall actually came from that small town?"

He was a little surprised. He was stunned by the power outage earlier and didn't pay much attention to the energy pipeline after entering the hall. It was not until he saw it again at this moment that he suddenly remembered.

"So, there might be some well-trained skilled slaves or insect people who can perform magic in that town."

Otherwise it wouldn't explain how the vehicle was repaired.

As the prototype messenger of life, the ambassador must have been an ancient person from ten thousand years ago.

It is not surprising that there are ancient people who know the magic of the king around him.

With this in mind, he quickly reached the edge of the town and the lit holy monument behind a huge rock.

[Quhe Grand Canyon Folding Tower Youjie Town Ruins]

"Youjie Town?"

Feeling the name of the holy monument appearing in his mind, Ye Yiyi raised his eyebrows, poked his head out from behind the boulder, and looked towards the town.

The town is quite clean and tidy, and you don't see many bugs.

Although the stone houses were broken and damaged, they still showed signs of repair and looked weathered, but there were bright lights on everywhere, and the air was filled with the invisible human scent in the insect-man's nest.

"Is this place really inhabited by insect people? Why can't I see a single insect?"

He looked confused and walked into the town without hiding his figure.

The outline of the hunting insect showed that it was somewhere in the center of the town. Ye Yiyi was not in a hurry. The monk could run away, but the temple could not. He might as well take a look at this ancient town first.

"Click~"

Stepping on the shallow layer of blue-black roots on the ground, Ye Yiyi had not taken two steps when he heard clear footsteps coming from the side.

He turned his head and saw a tall man in a light black robe with long hair as pale as snow in front of a nearby house. He was holding a small oil bottle in his hand and was adding fuel to the floor lamp next to the house.

"This……"

Ye Yiyi was stunned for a moment and couldn't help but stop.

That leisurely and lively behavior made him unable to react for a moment.

Humanity?

Or a bug-man disguised as a human?

Soon, the man filled up the fuel, picked up the oil can and turned away.

Suddenly it seemed to sense something and turned its head to look over.

A pale, expressionless handsome face, and gray, lifeless eyes, then came into Ye Yiyi's sight.

"The Deep Dead?"